Sunday, November 6, 2016

“Mendelssohn’s Songs of Praise”, the second concert in the
Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra’s Vocal ﻿
﻿Series and the first of its Liturgical
Series, featured the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir and the Laudamus Te Choir
(Stuttgart). Conductors were Naama Nazrati-Gordon (Jerusalem) and Monica Meira
Vasques (Germany), with soloists sopranos Daniela Skorka, Alla Vasilevitsky and
Jennifer May Owusu and tenor Alexander Yudenkov. This writer attended the
concert on October 27th 2016 in the Henry Crown Auditorium of the
Jerusalem Theatre; this and the concert following in Tel Aviv completed yet
another joint project of the two choirs, in which they had performed the same
program in Stuttgart some days prior to the Israel concerts.

The program opened with Felix Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42, opus
42 “As Pants the Hart”, conducted by Naama Nazrati-Gordon, with Daniela Skorka
performing the solo role. Mendelssohn wrote 19 settings of Psalm texts, prompted
by the high esteem he held for J.S.Bach’s music and by his love of Martin
Luther’s hymns. Opus 42 was composed in 1837, when Mendelssohn and his bride Cécile
were on their honeymoon. Usually a severe critic of his own music, the
composer, in letters to his sister Fanny and other friends, referred to the
work as his “very best sacred composition”. Opening with the image of the hart
(stag, deer) yearning for fresh water, the absence of both shows becomes
apparent, with the water appearing as tears, rushing streams and surging waves.
At the Jerusalem performance, Nazrati-Gordon directed the choirs in a fragile, poetic
reading of the opening chorus, the later more forthright choral utterances
vehement and intense but steering way from roughness of sound. Contending well
with orchestra and choir, Daniela Skorka, her voice bright, ample and easeful,
shaped words into eloquent phrases, giving meaning and emotion to the texts, some
delightful oboe-playing-playing accompanying the first soprano aria. Movement
6, in which Skorka was joined by tenors Alexander Yudenkov and Ori Batchko,
baritone Dor Magen and bass Dov Faust, formed a sonorous and rich ensemble
piece. The JSO players presented the vivid score with elegance, highlighting
the variety, colour and beauty of Mendelssohn’s evocative instrumental writing.

In 1838 or 1839, Mendelssohn began writing a symphony in
B-flat major. Having later received the commission to write one of the works
celebrating the 1840 quadricentenary of Gutenberg’s movable type for a Leipzig
festival, the composer returned to the symphony sketches, using them and new
material as the basis of the three-movement sinfonia that would be followed by
a series of nine vocal movements involving choir and soloists to form the
mammoth Symphony No.2 in B-flat major opus 52 “Lobesgesang”. The “Hymn of
Praise” texts, most of which are taken from the Bible, praise God and mankind’s
progress from darkness to enlightenment. Mendelssohn’s most ambitious
undertaking, it enjoyed much popularity during his lifetime, becoming a rarity
on the concert platform after that, a strange fact considering its celebration
of the German Reformation and literacy (to which Gutenberg had contributed), of
German church music and Bach’s weighty influence (chorales, fugal writing) on him.
The work also merges music of the concert hall with church music, forming a
hybrid genre breaking the tradition of separating the two. Symphony No.2 was
premiered at St. Thomas Church Leipzig, where Bach had served as Kapellmeister
for 17 years.

Monica Meira Vasques conducted orchestra, choir and soloists
in the “Lobesgesang” Symphony. In the three movements of the Sinfonia, the
trombones open with a noble, Luther-like hymn tune that proceeds to thread its
way through sections of the three orchestral movements, setting the scene for
the choral movements. Tenor Alexander Yudenkov, his voice warm and substantial,
possesses fine musical presence: his gripping rendering of the texts was both
articulate and convincing, at times narrative, at others, emotional, raising
the dramatic level:

‘The sorrows of death had closed all around me,

And hell’s terrors had got a hold upon me

With trouble and deep heaviness; (Psalm 116)

Opera singer Alla Vasilevitsky displayed flexibility, power
and lyrical beauty of timbre, her collaboration with Yudenkov in “My song shall
always be Thy mercy”, highlighting key words, producing a fine duet. In her
duet with Jennifer May Owusu, the two soprano voices did not find an ideal
balance, possibly due to the fact that the two were standing too far away to
hear each other, Owusu’s rich, creamy voice not quite audible enough, and more
the pity! The choir’s singing of choruses was well prepared and engaging,
however, often drowned out by the orchestra, rendering the verbal text
unintelligible.

Formed in 1987, the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir, numbering some
140 singers and performing repertoire from early to contemporary music and folk
music, works in separate groups and with different conductors, the groups joining
up once or twice a year to perform a large choral work. Oratorio ensembles have
performed in the UK, Italy, Romania, France and Germany and have recorded eight
CDs. Naama Nazrati Gordon is currently musical director of the Jerusalem Oratorio
Choir.

Laudamus Te (Stuttgart) was formed in 2007 by current
conductor Monica Meira Vasques. It consists of a chamber choir, a project
choir, an orchestra and various smaller vocal ensembles, their repertoire
spanning from Baroque- to contemporary music. Laudamus Te performs in the
Stuttgart region as well as outside of Germany. With Vasques’ strong emphasis
on sacred music, a close friendship with Israel has developed, their
association with the Jerusalem Oratorio Choir existing since 2008 and resulting
in several joint performances both in Germany and in Israel over recent years.

With the Henry Crown Hall full to capacity, the ambitious
undertaking by both choirs and conductors in “Mendelssohn’s Songs of Praise” made
for a vivid, festive affair.